"Call the Midwife" is superior to "Downton Abbey" in almost every way

and I really like Downton Abbey.

I have just finished the two seasons of CTM available on Netflix and every single episode was both very touching and uplifting, owing in no small part to their basis in the real life memoirs of its principal character. Downton Abbey, in contrast, is a stylized period soap opera... a fiction whose story lines are necessarily contrived and often seem forced.

There's no Maggie Smith, unfortunately, but Miranda Hart, who plays "Chummy", is solid gold.